


Deliration of Love

by arsenicandsunshine



Series: Merthur Kiss Fest 2019 [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autumn kisses, Canon Era, First Kiss, M/M, Merlin/Arthur Kiss Fest 2019, also Agravaine, and Gwen - Freeform, even though I'd rather not talk about that fucker, mentions of Mithian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22245412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicandsunshine/pseuds/arsenicandsunshine
Summary: Tall. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Shimmers in the sun. Is an utter prat. How could anyone not fall in love with Arthur Pendragon?Don't fall in love with destiny.Merlin has given up any hope of those deepest secrets of his ever coming to light and resigned himself to being happy because Arthur was happy. With someone else.Arthur may just surprise him once again.Or. In sorting through his feelings after banishing Gwen, Arthur realizes there's another person he's been stifling his emotions for.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Merthur Kiss Fest 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601377
Comments: 26
Kudos: 550
Collections: The Merlin/Arthur Kiss Fest 2019





	Deliration of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Set in season 4. Alternative take on the episode "The Hunter's Heart."  
>    
> Oneshot written for The Merlin/Arthur Kiss Fest 2019, Autumn Kisses.

Summer was gone. The haze on the horizon playing tricks, whispering of warm days, but the morning chill stretched through the day. The leaves were beginning to change, bringing the stark reality to bear.

Merlin hated winter and any reminder of it. Therefore, Merlin hated autumn.

His hatred of the current season wasn't forefront in his mind at the moment. The entirety of his mental capacity was, as usual, taken up with Arthur. This time the worry was spreading deep in his chest. Arthur had been withdrawn, not from the court or royal affairs. But from Merlin, keeping all the thoughts to himself. Their times alone were oddly silent. Well, oddly silent on Arthur's part. Merlin found the quieter Arthur was, the less he could keep his own mouth shut. The rambling had gotten rather out of hand.

Arthur shattered the silence in front of the entire court by announcing his intention to marry some princess Merlin had never heard of to settle a land dispute, of all things.

Gaius may have made him smile and clap, but he was inwardly screaming at Arthur. His toned-down version of said screaming at Arthur in the hallway afterwards did not go well.

“How come I didn't know any of this?”

That Arthur would make so important a decision without even the slightest hint of his plans to Merlin smarted. Which went right along with distant smartarse Arthur had been recently. Destiny or not, he was going to strangle the king.

“How come you didn't say anything?”

"That's what confidential means, Merlin, keeping it from blabbermouths like you."

The royal prat was at it again. Arthur wouldn't even stop walking long enough for Merlin to actually get his attention.

"You can't do this."

"You're right, I can't." Arthur stopped, turning back with that look, the one that showed up when his usual levels of prat-ness soared to new heights. "Oh wait a second, I'm the king, so I can."

That smile would be endearing, in any other circumstance. And without the underlying pain in his eyes.

"Surely it's a little bit--"

"A bit what?"

Merlin was treading on dangerous ground, but he couldn't not bring it up. Arthur waited.

"Soon."

Arthur's face hardened; he wasn't going to give Merlin an inch. He shrugged.

"What do you mean?"

His words were dripping with grief cloaked in rock-solid ice. If Merlin wanted to get anywhere, he'd be forced into saying what he was dancing around. It threw him for a loop, so used as he was to their half-spoken truths.

Merlin stuttered.

"You mean Guinevere?" Arthur softened, ever so slightly, allowing Merlin in just a crack. "I told you not to mention her name again."

"That's why I didn't."

He'd get Arthur to realise what he was doing, if it killed the both of them. They were damn good at talking circles around the important things by now.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Guinevere made her choice." There was a thread of bone-deep weary running through Arthur's voice, etched into new lines on his face.

"She betrayed me." The king was back. "And now she must take the consequences."

"But—”

“—but what?"

"Nothing." It was as close to screaming at Arthur as he'd gotten in a long while. The openness he'd managed to reel out of Arthur broke.

"That's right, nothing." Arthur turned to leave.

"Except that you still love her."

It was a cruel thing to say, but Merlin was running out of ways to get Arthur back to the truth and away from this dangerous little fantasy land he'd built in his head. Arthur froze and then snapped around. He marched back to Merlin, getting closer than he had in weeks, and speaking with quiet, broken fury.

"You ever say anything like that again, and I swear you'll join her in exile forever."

For all his empty threats, it was the first time Arthur had threatened to banish him. Merlin watched the king walk away, ignoring the slight sting in his chest.

They were right back to not speaking. Not really.

—

"Sire, I need to talk to you." Merlin burst into Arthur's chambers. Arthur glared at him from his spot by the window.

"I told you I didn't want to be disturbed."

His entire world was spinning on a different axis and Merlin couldn't get his footing back. There was a wedge between him and Arthur, driven firmly by an unknown source and forcing Merlin into a role he didn't think he'd ever play. It had only gotten worse, watching Arthur not-grieve these past weeks, barrelling straight ahead as if Gwen had never existed.

And then Arthur had found the ring, Gwen's ring, while out on the hunt. It seemed to snap the king out of the cloud of denial he'd been floating around in. Or so Merlin was guessing. Arthur still wasn't talking to him.

But he didn't need years of history with Arthur to read the heartbreak on his face.

Returning to the forest last night, he had found an injured Gwen. The cool turned cold, seeping in through his jacket and into his bones as he sat on the forest floor, waiting for her to wake up. He'd been so sure that Gwen was a part of Arthur's destiny. The doubt had nagged at him, relighting all the context of his decisions the past several days.

The problem with Mithian, Merlin had decided, was he actually liked her. She was smart and down to earth, and she made Arthur laugh. It certainly wasn't her fault she'd stepped into the middle of the whole situation and Arthur was still very much in love with Gwen. It may not have been his place, but friends didn't let friends marry out of pain.

He missed Gwen too, and having Arthur's pain bleeding all over him, shouting at him as the idiot stumbling around gushing from a chest wound while insisting he was fit as ever, made it worse.

It was beyond him how both Arthur and Gwen seemed determined to let whatever they'd had slip through their fingers. As he disappeared into the forest after she refused to come back, Merlin was almost as angry with her as he was with Arthur. He wanted to scream after her, _didn't she know what she was giving up._

Didn't she know what others would sacrifice to have what she was walking away from?

A blast of wind, carrying leaves and the promise of winter, had forced Merlin out of his self-pity. Gwen had given him vital information about Morgana's planned attack he needed to pass onto the king. The king who was now brushing him off like an annoying bit of lint.

"Sire, it is important, very important."

Everything hung in the air between them. And shattered on the floor like glass.

"You defy me?"

Arthur's decision to pull the king-and-customs card caught Merlin off guard. Never had he been forced to "defy" (Arthur's word, not his) Arthur to his face. The loss of trust almost unbalanced him.

"You defy your king?"

It was with disbelief he said, "Yes. I do. You know I would not do so if the situation was not grave."

Perhaps letting it unbalance him would have been the wiser choice, given the whole matter ended in another threat of exile and a gloating Agravaine when the plans for the siege tunnels were inextricably in their place. Somewhere in the past weeks, Arthur had begun treating Merlin like the servant he wasn't. Or thought he hadn't been.

Merlin stood in the vaults for a long moment, watching the torch light flicker away. Arthur walking with Agravaine, receiving poison council. And his own hands tied, outwitted again. Turned into the fool Arthur always claimed he was. His chest hurt and his eyes stung from the musty air.

That he may or may not have been intentionally avoiding Arthur's chambers until he thought the king would be asleep was no one's business but his own.

He wasn't.

Arthur was sitting on the end of his bed, instead of asleep in it, when Merlin walked in to bank the fire.

"Have you not slept, sire."

It was an obvious thing to say. Arthur looked like he had not rested for days. Alone, confused. Hurt. Merlin’s living reflection. He did his best to lay aside his own emotions and do his duty. He couldn't deny his anger towards the king over pushing him, and their shared history, aside like a rotten apple. But Arthur was in pain and needed him. It tugged at Merlin's already raw heart.

The wind rattled the chamber windows. Arthur said nothing.

"If there is nothing that you require, perhaps I could--"

"I don't know what to do."

Merlin had nothing to say that Arthur had not already made clear were banished words.

"I have no idea," Arthur continued, "What to do."

Arthur’s gaze was pinned to the wall, like it held some mystical, easy answer to his throbbing heart. His eyes like glass, lit with inward pain. And then Arthur turned to him.

"What should I do Merlin?"

Arthur's eyes, all the gleaming pain and desperate hope for comfort, broke Merlin's heart further. He was still mad at him. Angry for Arthur's utter lack of listening ability of late, his brash dismissal of Merlin.

"All I know, my lord, is no one would sacrifice more for Camelot or you than Gwen."

"If that were so?"

"You must do what your heart tells you, sire."

Arthur's gaze burned like the sun, seeking answers Merlin couldn't fling into his face any more than he already had. Arthur's attention drifted back to the ring in his hands. Merlin was about to reiterate his question, asking if he could go.

"That, I cannot do," Arthur said. He hesitated before turning to look at Merlin.

And look at Merlin in a way Merlin had no words for. All he knew was it took his breath away. And terrified him.

"That'll be all, Merlin."

Merlin nearly didn't hear his name, Arthur whispered it so softly. His words jumbled together in his mind, and rather than say any version of all the things he shouldn't, Merlin bowed slightly and turned to leave the room.

"Merlin,"

He turned back as he walked towards the door.

"Thank you."

He wasn't sure if what he felt was seeping onto his face at that moment, but he deeply hoped not. His legs moving out of memory, they carried him out of the king's chambers and down the corridors to his own.

Collapsing onto his bed, the thoughts kept swirling. For a few, precious minutes, Merlin let everything he normally kept in darker corners than his magic come crashing to the surface. Knowing the dangers, he let himself replay again and again the look in Arthur's eyes tonight. And all the looks all the times Merlin's breath had stopped and his stomach flipped. All the not-so-accidental touches. The moments that would stretch between them, threatening to snap, were precious memories, well worn with fingerprints from the nights Merlin had trouble sleeping.

—

Watching Arthur, in full regalia, sending Mithian back to Nemeth with compassion and strength filled Merlin's heart with quiet pride. He knew Arthur would do the right thing. He was King Arthur, of course he would. Black hopes banished to the far corners of his mind kept bleeding back. His own infantile crush on the man he was supposed to serve. The deepening chill of autumn was biting through his jacket, a tie to the physical world and a reprimand.

Falling in love with destiny was a bad idea.

The chill in the air took a nose dive the remainder of the day, servants shivering in thin jackets as they rushed about the castle more for the warmth than in pursuit of their duties.

Merlin was in Arthur's chambers, starting to turn down the sheets. Hoping that Arthur would sleep tonight.

"Have I been a fool?"

Arthur had been acting perfectly normal, since this morning, right up to that outburst.

"You did the right thing, my lord, as I knew you would," Merlin said as he piled pillows at the end of the bed.

"How could you be so sure?" Arthur asked.

"Because, you're Arthur. You're noble. You're the once and future king," Merlin answered, turning down the sheets. Prat was failing to see the obvious, despite it staring him in the face. Again.

"Because I'd follow my heart."

Merlin smiled. He faltered when he glanced up to find Arthur looking at him with what could only be described as desperation. It was shining out of his eyes, leaking out of his white knuckles.

"Arthur?"

Arthur moved around the bed to Merlin, who froze in place.

"If I am to be honest, about what is truly in my heart…" Arthur trailed off as he paused in front of Merlin, who was still frozen out of utter confusion. "Mithian asked me who she was, that I was so willing to risk so much for."

Merlin swallowed, desperately wanting to close his eyes and shield himself from the love in Arthur's. It wasn’t his, not even if he let himself pretend for a moment.

"I lied."

Merlin raised an eyebrow.

"I said she was no one." Arthur moved closer, reaching for Merlin. "But he is everything."

He. Merlin's ears were ringing. His vision was fuzzy around the edges and he reached for something to steady himself, his fingers closing on the fine, turned wood of the bedpost. Arthur steadied him, his hands on Merlin's waist. He drew himself closer.

"Arthur, what're you doing?" Merlin breathed, his breath moving Arthur's hair. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed this closeness with Arthur, now it was overwhelming.

"Following my heart," Arthur muttered back, moving one hand up to Merlin's neck. Merlin didn't move. Didn't even breathe.

Arthur pulled back. "Unless, you don't want me to," he said, voice wavering.

"Don't mind me, I'm unsteady because I ran up the stairs to get here."

Arthur didn't move. For several heartbeats, neither of them moved. It sank in that Arthur genuinely would not do anything if he wasn't sure Merlin wanted it. Merlin needed him to do something because he was fairly certain his knees were about to give out.

"Yes." Merlin's voice cracked, rough and sounding like he hadn't used it in a month. "I want you too."

 _Desperately need you too_ , he added mentally.

Arthur's eyes were darker than normal. He pushed Merlin further back, hitting the wall. Finally, finally, Arthur brushed his lips against Merlin's. Soft and gentle.

Merlin fisting his hand in Arthur's hair, pulling his mouth closer. Turning the kiss deep and hard. Of all the secrets he kept, any desire for this was the darkest kept of all. One touch of Arthur's lips and it all came bursting forth.

Arthur hooked one hand behind Merlin, fingers splayed on Merlin's lower back, and pulled him flush against him. The heat of being pressed against Arthur banishing the chill from the air along with a good deal of the tension from the past weeks. Autumn just might be his new favourite season.

Arthur broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against Merlin's.

"Arthur," Merlin groaned.

His hand was shaking as he cupped Merlin's face and gently kissed his forehead.

"Without you, my crown is worth nothing."

Merlin found overwhelming love in Arthur’s eyes, flooding Merlin's veins and threatening to take away his ability to think permanently.

"Dramatic, aren’t we?"

"Says the man who can't stand on his own right now."

"I doubt you'd fare much better, sire."

Arthur ran his thumb along Merlin's jaw.

"Well, you are the clumsy one." He leaned closer, lips replacing his hand. "But probably not. And if you tell anyone that, I'll throw you in the stocks again."

Merlin laughed as the wind swirled leaves against the glass.


End file.
